Northridge Is Taking Hits Off the Field Too

Molding football teams into championship material has long been Jim Fenwick’s craft and passion.

He showed a decided knack for producing winners by turning two San Fernando Valley junior colleges, L.A. Pierce and L.A. Valley, into national powerhouses.

So why is Fenwick, the first-year coach at Cal State Northridge, growing more nervous as the season approaches?

Because, without a doubt, he has never played for higher stakes.

“I really want to start the season correctly,” Fenwick said. “I guess that brings out the anxiety.”

Anyone in his position might feel the same.

The Matadors are in the midst of an ambitious short-range plan to challenge for the title in the Big Sky Conference, arguably the nation’s strongest Division I-AA football league.

It began last season under Dave Baldwin, who left in December to become coach at San Jose State, when the Matadors finished 7-4 overall and 5-3 in their Big Sky debut.

That improbable turnabout after finishing 2-8 the year before, including 1-2 in the unremarkable and since disbanded American West Conference, quickly raised the expectations at Northridge and created more pressure to win.

Fenwick, 45, inherited the heat, which soon increased significantly.

When he was hired in January, calling it his dream job, Fenwick was charged with keeping the Matadors upwardly mobile. He was coming off six highly successful seasons at Valley, where he had a 30-3 record the last three years and catapulted the Monarchs into national prominence, much as he had done with the Pierce program in the early 1980s.

But in June, Northridge dropped four men’s sports--baseball, volleyball, soccer and swimming--citing financial reasons and the school’s move toward compliance with gender-equity requirements in athletics.

Fenwick’s program suddenly became fodder for critics who argued that the four slashed programs, later reinstated for one year, should have been saved permanently by eliminating football.

Those sentiments, from people in a community that has never truly embraced Northridge football, annoyed Fenwick.

“We are trying to build a tradition here,” Fenwick said. “I’m sorry about what happened with those other programs, but there’s nothing I can do about it. I’m so engrossed with trying to make my program the best I can make it.”

The Matadors, who offer only 45 scholarships compared to the maximum of 63 handed out by other Big Sky schools except Cal State Sacramento, open with road games against three Division I-A opponents: Boise State, Hawaii and New Mexico State.

The Matadors have been picked by Big Sky coaches to finish fourth in the nine-team conference, even though Northridge has 36 lettermen and 12 starters, including All-Americans Aaron Flowers at quarterback and Marc Goodson at middle linebacker.

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CS Northridge 1997 Schedule

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Aug. 30 at Boise State 6 p.m. Sept. 6 at Hawaii 9 p.m. Sept. 13 at New Mexico State 5:30 p.m. Sept. 20 Azusa Pacific 6 p.m. Oct. 4 *at Portland State 6 p.m. Oct. 11 *Weber State 6 p.m. Oct. 18 *at Montana State 11:30 a.m. Oct. 25 *CS Sacramento 6 p.m. Nov. 1 *at Montana 11 a.m. Nov. 8 *Idaho State 6 p.m. Nov. 15 *at E. Washington 1 p.m. Nov. 22 *Northern Arizona 6 p.m.

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Home site: Cal State Northridge

*Big Sky Conference game; All times PDT